The Book I Keep Trying to Write (Holly Schindler)

I had the strangest assortment of music teachers: 

Mrs. Webber, wife of a minister who played piano in the church (and was seriously offended when I brought "She Bop" sheet music in as a seven-year-old student) AND

Bill Brown, a local guitar player who (at the time I met him) was playing with the Ozark Mountain Daredevils. 

Bill Brown (1960-2004)

I've written briefly about Bill teaching me to play guitar. I was an actual fan when I came in for lessons. Imagine suddenly being face-to-face with a guitar hero you'd listened to for hours, poring over their liner notes. I'd seen him play around town, the first time at the annual John Lennon tribute here in Springfield. I was sort of beside myself when I found out he taught out of a music store on the north side of town. You can bet I signed up. Knees knocking the entire way.

Bill was hilarious and sweet. Which make me less nervous, of course. But I have often said that I have never, not once, been in a room with anyone more talented. I could live to be a hundred and meet the best the world has to offer, and I won't meet anyone more talented. He played blues. He loved The Beatles. He could listen to a song once and know immediately how to break it down. At the John Lennon tribute where I first saw him play, he broke a string. Kept right on playing. The only reason I knew it broke was because I could see it flopping in the stage lights. If my eyes had been closed, I'd never have known. The guitar wasn't a thing he played so much as something he talked with.

He dug to find out who I was. He made me bring in songs I loved. When he found out I wrote poetry, he made me bring some in to show me how to turn them into songs. 

I've tried a few times to put who he was to me into a book. Everything I've tried so far has fallen painfully short. 

For now, there's this: Earlier this year, I did something I hadn't done in five years. I clicked open my guitar case. And I remembered when I showed up for my first lesson, Bill told me, "Music'll be the best friend you'll ever have." No matter what else happened in my life, he said, I'd always have music. It would never go anywhere. 

And damn if it hadn't. Not in five years of not playing. Nothing has made me happier or made me feel more grounded or (do I dare even type it?) whole. Not like this. 

So thanks, Bill. You were right. 

I'll be playing again tomorrow. Holding tight to my fifteen-minutes-a-day break in the afternoon. And I will keep working on the story. It's a work in progress.

~

Holly Schindler is the author of the YA A Blue So Dark